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SunnComm Reconsiders Lawsuit Threat
The Importance of writes "SunnComm, which yesterday had threatened to sue Alex Halderman for writing a report critical of SunnComm's MediaMax CD3 DRM technology, has now backed off that threat. 'I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research,' SunnComm's CEO Peter Jacobs said."
By coincidence he also didn't figure out he didn't have much chance of winning *anything*, financial or otherwise, did he?
GPL Deconstructed
The fact that he could bring the lawsuit up at all, or the fact that he thought he could WIN.
"I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research," Jacobs said.
If I may submit an idea, sir, if you really want to avoid chilling effects on research through this law, perhaps you could bring the challenge to court anyway, and then lose. That would set a precident.
Hell, you wouldn't even have to get a good lawyer. In fact the worse a lawyer you get, the more benficial it'll be in the long run. Think it over?
GMFTatsujin
You gotta wonder if their latest decision had anything to do with the 50,000 (guess) emails they received from people like me warning them what public suicide it would be to do that...
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Still, would've been fun to see a judge laugh their case out the courtroom.
AC comments get piped to
I would have liked to see this go to trial with the aid of the EFF. It would have made an excellent test case challenging the stupidity contained in the DMCA.
On the other hand, I'm glad the kid isn't going to get shafted by this.
When all else fails, run.
From the article: "I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research," Jacobs [CEO SunnComm]said.
"Halderman's graduate advisor at Princeton is Ed Felten, a computer science professor who once sued the Recording Industry Association of America in a challenge to the constitutionality of the DMCA. The RIAA had threatened action under the DMCA against Felten and colleagues after they said they would publish a paper disclosing flaws in an industry security initiative. That suit was eventually dismissed. " from the CNN article on the threatened lawsuit.
I wonder how forgiving he would be if Halderman was just a regular guy posting on his web page or if his advisor was not already experienced in defending a DCMA lawsuit.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I am guessing his lawyers explained to him in simple words his chances of winning that lawsuit...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Too bad they're backing off. This was so patently absurd that it provided terrific support to the anti-DCMA forces.
Start sarcasm here.
Oh, hey, look at that - you're doing something I don't like.
You know, I could hit you with this baseball bat. You deserve it, you know, for saying that my security of the plant doesn't work too well since I leave the backdoor unlocked and unprotected.
But I won't. No, I'm just walking here in front of you, slappin' this bat against my palm - but I'm not really going to hit you with it for saying that people could just walk into the back of the store because my level of "protection" really just involves scaring away the local kids.
You did a study on my security system so people could make an informed choice about either using me, or saving the money by not having me walk up and down the sidewalk glaring at people? You know, you intellectual types are the reason why people steal things in the first place, and why my security techniques don't work on folks.
I should hit you with this bat. I still might - but I'm not.
-- SunComm
Stop sarcasm here.
Look, SunComm, you're solution you peddled to the music folks is just not secure. You know it, we know it - you're just pissed that your customers, who you thought were a bunch of luddite rubes, now know it. Granted, your customers should realize that there are other ways to ensure profit (lowering prices, giving less restrictive online purchasing options like those seen by the iTunes store, the MusicMatch store, and growing others) - but as far as your business is concerned, it's a wash.
Now we can all get on with our lives.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I hereby withdraw my nomination of Jacobs for the annual McBride Award for Excellence in Stupid Lawsuits.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Translation of this guy's soundbite after being run through the BS machine: "I don't actually know anything about computers, but I thought I knew how to be a belligerent mercantilist. Now I realize I don't have a chance in hell of winning anything, especially since this kid is a college student with no money, so instead I'm going to try to spin it so me and my stupid company don't look like total asses. I'll be going back to my job now as a slave for the RIAA and their associated goons. Have a nice day!"
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
The saddest part is that they acknowledge this will only deter casual copying, i.e., fair-use. The real CD pirates (the ones selling pirated CDs) will just laugh, and no matter what system they use, it will get uploaded to Kazaa (people ripped their old 45s and put them up on Napster for crying out loud). So we have a system which prevents "honest" customers from listening to their music on their iPod, does nada to prevent uploading to Kazaa, and less than nothing to stop CD pirates.
Will somebody please give these guys a giant dope-slap to the back of their heads?
I don't understand why companies keep putting DRM on CDs and DVDs. Is it just ignorance, or do they honestly believe there's value there? I forget how much Macrovision protection on DVDs costs, but it's a significant piece of the total cost of the DVD -- I'm sure that SunnComm charges a similar price for each CD shipped with its "DRM" (I use quotes because this really is the most pathetic DRM I've heard of).
Where is the value for the producers of those DVDs and CDs? All it takes is a single MP3 to be leaked and all the copy protection on the CDs out there is useless. Back in the Napster days I ripped a fairly obscure song and made it available. Even today I can search DC Hubs or Kazaa and find my MP3 all over the place. Copy protection will only ever work if it prevents 100% of copying...which it never will.
My advice to RIAA and MPAA member companies: just drop the whole notion of DRM on your products. Trust your customers, give them what they want, treat them with respect. Most of us won't screw you...honest!
All DRM does is punish the honest user, spawn bizarre laws like the DMCA, and make a fun target for the release groups to crack.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Looks like SunnComm learned their lesson from the RIAA, MPAA and SCO: Filing lawsuits because your organization sucks just makes more people realize that your organization sucks.
Umm it only dropped by three cents a share overnight.
The bad news of course is that THAT was dropping by 1/3rd. HAH!
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
"I don't want to be the guy that gets laughed out of court for trying to stop users from hitting the SHIFT key".
Seriously, it doesn't take a genius to work out that:
a) the "protection" mechanism was going to be easy to circumvent; and
b) once the circumvention was common knowledge, the "protection" mechanism was going to be useless.
Now if the circumvention method involved something a little more difficult than pressing one single key (or disabling autorun) then he might have something to go to court about. As it stands, their "protection" is useless vs anyone who knows the first thing about how to use a PC - and that subset includes the very people who are most likely to rip a CD and upload it to P2P networks.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
"I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research," Jacobs said.
Jacobs continued by adding, "I'll settle for just creating chilling effects on the concepts of fair use and privacy."
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Actually, the DMCA does explicitly state it's illegal to bypass an "effective means" of copy protection. Not even the most tech-clueless judge would consider suncomm's protection effective. It doesn't work on windows machines that just happen to have auto-run disabled, it doesn't work on machines where the user is properly running his machine under a non-administrative account that doesn't have permission to install software, it doesn't work on Linux or, for the most part the MAC, making this method particularly ineffective.
--- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
And then once you go to court, if your record is clean, they may (usually? always?) offer to let you take a `don't shoplist!' class (very similar to defensive driving) and if you keep out of trouble for 6 months or so, the case is dismissed.
If you steal a car, they're not quite so friendly. (But if you then take it and have it repainted, they'll all forget about you!)
Yay for the parent post. Much more polite, many fewer expletives than I'd have used, but yeah, what he said.
Now, can someone explain just why SunComm thought it was a good idea to threaten litigation, but then back off, effectively publicizing the Shift thing even more for the two people who hadn't heard about it already? What kind of battle cry is "hey, we're taking you to court because you proved we're incompetent tools...oh, wait, we meant all of that except for the court thing!"? I don't care quite enough to check their stock price today or to find out if there are other money-makers for the SunComm people, but if this is the way they do business and this is a good example of the research & testing they do before deploying their products and strategies, I've got a $20 here that says I'll be able to line my hamster cage with SunComm stock before too long.
I couldn't comment on the original article yesterday evening because it made me almost physically ill. It's just a matter of time before something gives one way or the other, and to be honest I can't wait.
With this ClueBat, I dub thee Luser.
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
It's hard to stuff so many misconceptions and questionable assumptions into a single paragraph. This is hardly about the conflict betweeen "strong anti-piracy protections" and "less stringent copyright enforcement." More accurate would be to cite it as an example of the ongoing conflict between weak anti-piracy protections and the legitimate research of academics and professionals who expose it as such.
While we're at it, let's replace "anti-piracy protections" with "anti-duplication technology," just to highlight what this stuff really accomplishes - making it harder (and basically illegal) for individuals to exercise their fair-use rights in a vain attempt to keep copyrighted materials off P2P networks and (probably representing a much bigger impact on actual bottom lines) people from burning dupes of CDs for friends. I find it difficult to imagine anyone who doesn't have a vested interest in propping up the illusion of the efficacy of DRM technology advocating that any of the measures out there represent any real defense against file sharing.
And we can go on to replace "those who favor less stringent copyright enforcement" with "a broad cross-section of individuals, academics, professionals and politicians who question whether draconian legal attacks against individuals, questionable lawsuits against academics, and legislation that extends copyright terms far beyond their traditional boundaries and violates the principles of fair use, freedom of speech and prior restraint in service of protecting claimed technological fixes for copyright violations that have so far failed to materialize as effective methods of preventing the illegal distribution of copyrighted information." Hey, it's not so snappy. But sometimes the truth hurts prose.
And then there's "the decision against legal action represents one of a precious few instances of companies looking past their bottom line." Well, I guess it's nice to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I guess I'll make the cynical observation that this example of a DMCA lawsuit threat getting dropped doesn't seem to be all that unique, now does it? One is tempted to offer the alternative explanation - that after making a knee jerk response to getting hammered in the market (and really, this is the result of how the press reported this article - in and of itself the article would never have had this kind of effect), someone in their legal department noted that the suit was likely going to lose, that it was likely to have the opposite effect of increasing investor confidence and good will, and that DMCA suits threatening academics were a strategy likely to lead to what the industry absolutely doesn't want - a high profile case, illustrating the critical problems with the DMCA, against an individual with representation and back-up (Princeton has made it pretty clear it will stand up against attacks of this nature) likely to take it to the point where the viability of the DMCA itself might be threatened. So they cooked up the best way to spin it and had themselves a press conference.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
This situation once again illustrates why the DMCA is flawed legislation. The DMCA actually encourages litigation that borders on extortion, and comes very, very close to supporting the inhibition of Freedom of speech.
Also, it seems to me that developing a product to combat casual copying doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't think casual copying is costing the industry a lot of money. And if someone really wants a copy of something, they can always find a geek friend in the neighborhood who can figure out "how to hold down the shift key". The fact is, the majority of consumers are honest customers who pay for product and support. It doesn't make sense to cripple products with DRM for everyone, to prevent supposed losses from people who probably hardly buy music at all. I can more sympathsize with the RIAA getting upset with P2P, where a person can distribute thousands of copies of a track throughout the world in a few minutes -- rather than SunComm trying to prevent a Mom from distributing 12 custom music CDs at her kid's birthday party.
Another point -- from personal experience -- I hardly bought any music at all in the decade before Napster; since technology has been making it possible to rip tracks, play music on my PC, mix video and sound, create custom media , I've actually gotten to the point where I buy 4 to 10 CDs a month -- which is 4 to 10 times more music than I ever bought in the 80s or 90s. I think that there are more geeks like me, than those whose music collection consists entirely of "free" music.
I agree completely. How much research is needed to find out that autoplay is a feature which you can disable? And what kind of clusterfuck pile of dumbasses bases a security feature off of something you can disable with a keystroke in the first place???
Research. It only took me 5 seconds to find the above link. Well - thank God I'm still allowed to.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"From our standpoint, we are designing the software for the 99 percent of the people who don't want to steal the music but instead (want to) use it for whatever means--for whatever personal use that's allowed by the artist and the record label. The software was designed for those people, not for the 1 percent who are going to take the lock cutters and cut the lock off and steal music in an unauthorized way."
Oh, okay, I'll say something. In other words, his copy protection is designed to keep people who have no intention of trying to copy the music from copying the music they never intended on copying. It isn't intended on keeping those people who want to copy the music from copying the music, which they can and already are doing.IANAL, but Mr. Peter Jacobs published remarks about the motives of the grad student involved sound very much like slander (or is it libel?)